Coping with Digital Wellbeing in a Multi-Device World

Abstract

While Digital Self-Control Tools (DSCTs) mainly target smartphones, more effort should be put into evaluating multi-device ecosystems to enhance digital wellbeing as users typically use multiple devices at a time. In this paper, we first review more than 300 DSCTs by demonstrating that the majority of them implements a single-device conceptualization that poorly adapts to multi-device settings. Then, we report on the results from an interview and a sketching exercise (N=20) exploring how users make sense of their multi-device digital wellbeing. Findings show that digital wellbeing issues extend beyond smartphones, with the most problematic behaviors deriving from the simultaneous usage of different devices to perform uncorrelated tasks. While this suggests the need of DSCTs that can adapt to different and multiple devices, our work also highlights the importance of learning how to properly behave with technology, e.g., through educational courses, which may be more effective than any lock-out mechanism.